White House warns House Democrats not to harass staff with oversight investigations

The White House is warning House Democrats not to get personal as they prepare for new investigations in the majority come January.The Office of the White House Counsel wrote to Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) this week, cautioning him that investigations may cross into criminal activity if they’re used to intimidate or obstruct officials from doing their jobs.Garcia, the incoming House oversight committee chairman, warned White House officials to “lawyer up” last week after Democrats flipped control of the House and Senate during the midterm elections. But in his letter, Will Scharf, counsel to the president, told Garcia that congressional investigations must serve a legislative end. “The Supreme Court has held that ‘[i]nvestigations conducted solely for the personal aggrandizement of the investigators … are indefensible,” Scharf wrote to Garcia, citing the Supreme Court’s decision in Watkins v. United States. “Congressional investigations must further a legitimate legislative task; Congress cannot employ them to exercise powers of criminal prosecution assigned to the Executive and the Judiciary.”The letter is the latest demonstration that President Donald Trump will not quietly allow the incoming Democratically controlled Congress to steamroll his administration.Scharf also said the White House was “monitoring the abusive and capricious threats that are now proliferating from Democrat legislators who seek to abuse the legislative process to intimidate and to interfere with the lawful functioning of government.”Garcia has indicated that House Democrats will investigate officials over a number of issues, including matters related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.“There have been no public hearings on the Jeffrey Epstein investigation: No witness testimonies, no stories from survivors, and no answers from Attorney General Todd Blanche about the largest White House cover-up in history,” he wrote on X. “All of that is going to change.”Garcia has also taken aim at Stephen Miller, Trump’s new chief of staff. “Stephen Miller has been the architect of Trump’s cruel and unconstitutional mass deportation campaign. Todd Blanche doesn’t want us to take him on. Why?” Garcia asked. “The American people deserve accountability for the harms done by ICE and DHS in this country.”AMERICANS ACROSS THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM VIEW MAGA AS A ‘LOSER’: POLLScharf’s letter is an indication that the White House is prepared to spend the final two years of the Trump administration waging an aggressive defense against congressional Democrats hell-bent on probing the president.“Beyond being inconsistent with the clear, well-recognized constitutional limitations on your investigative functions, threats to executive branch officials designed to deter them from public service, or process designed merely to abuse or instill fear in the recipient may cross the line into blatant criminality,” Scharf warned. “And issuing unlawful subpoenas with the intention of depriving citizens of their constitutional rights and privileges may warrant further investigation.”But Democrats are unlikely to heed Scharf’s warning. They are expected to launch investigations into the Trump administration once the new Congress is sworn in.